Related papers: Harnessing non-equilibrium forces to optimize work…
Many physical, biological, and even social systems are faced with the problem of how to efficiently harvest free energy from an environment that can have many possible states, yet only have a limited number of harvesting protocols to choose…
Many techniques originally developed in the context of deterministic control theory have been recently applied to the quest for optimal protocols in stochastic processes. Given a system subject to environmental fluctuations, one may ask…
Recent studies have explored finite-time dissipation-minimizing protocols for stochastic thermodynamic systems driven arbitrarily far from equilibrium, when granted full external control to drive the system. However, in both simulation and…
Quantifying energy flows at nanometer scales promises to guide future research in a variety of disciplines, from microscopic control and manipulation, to autonomously operating molecular machines. A general understanding of the…
We identify generic protocols achieving optimal power extraction from a single active particle subject to continuous feedback control under the assumption that its spatial trajectory, but not its instantaneous self-propulsion force, is…
Extracting useful work from quantum systems is a fundamental problem in quantum thermodynamics. In scenarios where rapid protocols are desired -- whether due to practical constraints or deliberate design choices -- a fundamental trade-off…
The optimal control of passive systems in equilibrium typically favours quasistatic (infinite-time) protocols. We show that a breakdown of quasistatic optimality occurs when the controller itself is dissipative. Concretely, we study a…
Transferring a physical system from an initial to a final state while minimizing energetic losses is an interdisciplinary control problem that bridges stochastic thermodynamics and optimal transport theory. Recent research typically…
Optimizing the energy efficiency of driving processes provides valuable insights into the underlying physics and is of crucial importance for numerous applications, from biological processes to the design of machines and robots. Knowledge…
We experimentally realize protocols that allow to extract work beyond the free energy difference from a single electron transistor at the single thermodynamic trajectory level. With two carefully designed out-of-equilibrium driving cycles…
For systems in an externally controllable time-dependent potential, the optimal protocol minimizes the mean work spent in a finite-time transition between two given equilibrium states. For overdamped dynamics which ignores inertia effects,…
What are the fundamental limitations for finite-time engines that extract work from active nonequilibrium systems, and what are the optimal protocols that approach them? We show that the finite-time work extraction for nonconservative…
A thermodynamic system is driven into a nonequilibrium condition when a time-dependent force or a nonconservative force represented by a protocol $\lambda(t)$ is applied. Such a system is time irreversible in the sense that the motion under…
We propose and analyze a process that extracts useful work from a single active particle maintained at constant temperature in a harmonic potential by measuring the relative sign of the self-propulsion and the confining force and then…
Microscopic machines utilize free energy to create and maintain out-of-equilibrium organization in virtually all living things. Often this takes the form of converting the free energy stored in nonequilibrium chemical potential differences…
We present a method for finding optimal controllers for unknown, time-varying, dynamic systems which can be re-initialized from a given initial condition repeatedly, in which the performance measure is available for sampling with noise, but…
We put forth a notion of optimality for extracting ergotropic work, derived from an energy constraint governing the necessary dynamics for work extraction in a quantum system. Within the traditional ergotropy framework, which predicts an…
The development of efficient artificial nanodevices poses challenges which are of fundamental and technological nature. Recent progress has been made in the context of finite-time thermodynamics. A central question in finite-time…
The promise of self-assembly to enable bottom-up formation of materials with prescribed architectures and functions has driven intensive efforts to uncover rational design principles for maximizing the yield of a target structure. Yet,…
Information processing machines at the nanoscales are unavoidably affected by thermal fluctuations. Efficient design requires understanding how nanomachines can operate at minimal energy dissipation. In this letter we focus on mechanical…